"An eight-year deadlock over a list of streams that would receive special protection from pollution" in West Virginia ended with smiles from government officials and frowns from business interests and environmentalists, reports The Charleston Gazette.
"The final rule language gives the toughest pollution limits almost exclusively only to streams that run through public lands," Ken Ward Jr. writes. "As industry groups had wanted, streams running through private lands would be excluded, unless citizens go through a long process of nominating them for those protections." The legislative process itself was complicated, but Ward makes it understandable.
Gov. Joe Manchin said the law would protect the state's trout streams, most of which are on public land, while protecting landowners' rights. "Environmentalists argue that the Clean Water Act protections at stake don't have anything to do with private property rights," Ward notes. "The streams don't belong to private individuals or landowners, environmentalists say; the state's waters belong to all of the people." Business lobbies argued the public interest of jobs. The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce said, "This could adversely impact economic development in many rural areas of the state and seriously affect future land use."
In related action in the legislative session, Ward reports, "Coal industry officials succeeded in convincing lawmakers to not add nearly 400 streams to a list of specially protected trout waters, [and] approval of a long-sought lessened water-pollution limit for aluminum." (Read more)
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